PostageApp Ruby Gem

This is the gem used to integrate Ruby apps with PostageApp service. Personalized, mass email sending can be offloaded to PostageApp via JSON based API.

API Documentation • PostageApp Knowledge Base • PostageApp Help Portal

Installation

Rails 3.x

Add postageapp gem to your Gemfile:

gem 'postageapp'

Then from the Rails project's root run:

bundle install
script/rails generate postageapp --api-key PROJECT_API_KEY

Rails 2.x

In config/environment.rb add the following:

config.gem 'postageapp'

Then from the Rails project's root run:

rake gems:install
rake gems:unpack GEM=postageapp
script/generate postageapp --api-key PROJECT_API_KEY

Sinatra / Rack / Others

You'll need to install the gem first:

$ sudo gem install postageapp

And then it's as simple as doing something like this:

require 'postageapp'

PostageApp.configure do |config|
  config.api_key = 'PROJECT_API_KEY'
end

Usage

Here's an example of sending a message (See full API documentation):

request = PostageApp::Request.new(:send_message, {
  'headers'     => { 'from'     => 'sender@example.com',
                     'subject'  => 'Email Subject' },
  'recipients'  => 'recipient@example.com',
  'content'     => {
    'text/plain'  => 'text email content',
    'text/html'   => 'html email content'
  },
  'attachments' => {
    'document.pdf' => {
      'content_type'  => 'application/pdf',
      'content'       => Base64.encode64(File.open('/path/to/document.pdf', 'rb').read)
    }
  }
})
response = request.send

PostageApp::Response object allows you to check the status:

>> response.status
=> 'ok'

Alternatively you may use:

>> response.fail?
=> false
>> response.ok?
=> true

Response usually comes back with data:

>> response.data
=> { 'message' => { 'id' => '12345' }}

Recipient Override

Sometimes you don't want to send emails to real people in your application. For that there's an ability to override to what address all emails will be delivered. All you need to do is modify configuration block like this (in Rails projects it's usually found in RAILS_ROOT/config/initializers/postageapp.rb):

PostageApp.configure do |config|
  config.api_key            = 'PROJECT_API_KEY'
  config.recipient_override = 'you@example.com' unless Rails.env.production?
end

ActionMailer Integration

You can quickly convert your existing mailers to use PostageApp service by simply changing class MyMailer < ActionMailer::Base to class MyMailer < PostageApp::Mailer. If you using ActionMailer from outside of Rails make sure you have this line somewhere: require 'postageapp/mailer'

There are custom methods that allow setting of template and variables parts of the API call. They are postageapp_template and postageapp_variables. Examples how they are used are below. For details what they do please see documentation

Please note that deliver method will return PostageApp::Response object. This way you can immediately check the status of the delivery. For example:

>> response = UserMailer.welcome_email(@user).deliver
>> response.ok?
=> true

Rails 3.x

Here's an example of a mailer in Rails 3 environment:

require 'postageapp/mailer'

class Notifier < PostageApp::Mailer

  def signup_notification

    attachments['example.zip'] = File.read('/path/to/example.zip')

    headers['Special-Header'] = 'SpecialValue'

    # PostageApp specific elements:
    postageapp_template 'example_template'
    postageapp_variables 'global_variable' => 'value'

    # You may set api key for a specific mailers
    postageapp_api_key '123456abcde'

    # You can manually specify uid for the message payload.
    # Make sure it's sufficiently unique.
    postageapp_uid Digest::SHA1.hexdigest([@user.id, Time.now].to_s)

    mail(
      :from     => 'test@test.test',
      :subject  => 'Test Message',
      :to       => {
        'recipient_1@example.com' => { 'variable' => 'value' },
        'recipient_2@example.com' => { 'variable' => 'value' }
      })
  end
end

API of previous ActionMailer is partially supported under Rails 3 environment. Please note that it's not 100% integrated, some methods/syntax will not work. You may still define you mailers in this way (but really shouldn't):

require 'postageapp/mailer'

class Notifier < PostageApp::Mailer

  def signup_notification
    from        'sender@example.com'
    subject     'Test Email'
    recipients  'recipient@example.com'
  end
end

Rails 2.x

Here's an example of a mailer you'd set in in a Rails 2 environment:

require 'postageapp/mailer'

class Notifier < PostageApp::Mailer
  def signup_notification

    from        'system@example.com'
    subject     'New Account Information'

    # Recipients can be in any format API allows.
    # Here's an example of a hash format
    recipients  ({
      'recipient_1@example.com' => { 'variable_name_1' => 'value',
                                     'variable_name_2' => 'value' },
      'recipient_2@example.com' => { 'variable_name_1' => 'value',
                                     'variable_name_2' => 'value' },
    })

    attachment  :content_type => 'application/zip',
                :filename     => 'example.zip',
                :body         => File.read('/path/to/example.zip')

    # PostageApp specific elements:
    postageapp_template 'example_template'
    postageapp_variables 'global_variable' => 'value'

  end
end

Automatic resending in case of failure

For those ultra rare occasions when api.postageapp.com is not reachable this gem will temporarily store requests and then will attempt to resend them with the next successful connection. In Rails environment it will create a folder: RAILS_ROOT/tmp/postageapp_failed_requests and save all failed requests there. On successful resend file for that request will be deleted.

For projects other than Rails you'll need to tell where there project_root is at:

PostageApp.configure do |config|
  config.api_key      = 'PROJECT_API_KEY'
  config.project_root = "/path/to/your/project"
end

Copyright

(C) 2011-13 Oleg Khabarov, The Working Group, Inc